All posts by Stephan Lourens

Born 20 years to early. Curses sometimes. Thinks too much. Believes plug-and-play is the best invention ever. If asked what he wants for his birthday he will say a gadget, then money. So he can go buy a gadget.

Yes dear reader, that's correct. An iPhone casing made from solid gold that will cost you US$11 610. Or if you have just a little more spare change lying around, get the platinum case for US$14 325 to add even more of a bling factor to your attire.
The casings are made by Brikk, a Los Angeles company specialising in handmade luxury products. You need to be a "Brikk" anyway to fall for this. Luxury (or stupidity) is the keyword here. For that price, you would expect to get a load of features built into the casing, but sadly the...

Although just a concept car at this stage, the Cadillac ATC is a prospective look into the future of mobile communication. But we have mobile computing already don't we? Yes, but we are talking about a "smartcar", not a smartphone or tablet. Unveiled at the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the car is basically a smartphone on wheels. And if you think about it, it was always going to happen some or other time.
Using the Cadillac ATS as a base model, the car is equipped with a 4G LTE connection from AT&T complete with the 4G AT&T logo on the...

Following in the footsteps of Huawei, ZTE, Alcatel and LG, Sony has announced it too will commit to the HTML5 bandwagon by 2014 with a mobile device running on Firefox, said deputy CEO Bob Ishida (thank you GSMArena). Firefox OS will launch later this year in selected countries, which will make it the third latest OS launched for 2013 together with Blackberry 10 and Ubuntu.
This announcement comes after wireless carrier Telefonica plans to offer the Sony Xperia Z and Tablet Z as part of its services, adding that it and Sony have begun exploring the development of a Firefox OS...

In what can be compared to a ping-pong match, Apple has delivered an updated iOS to developers that could, or most probably would, decimate the Evasi0n jailbreak released just a couple of weeks ago. According to one of the creators of Evasi0n, David Wang, the 6.1.3 beta 2 update patches one of the five exploited bugs in iOS, as reported by Forbes.
"If one of the vulnerabilities doesn't work, evasi0n doesn't work. We could replace that part with a different vulnerability, but will probably fix most if not all of the bugs we've used when 6.1.3 comes out”, said...

Update: It’s official, this is the invite for the Samsung Unpacked event. It starts at 19:00 EST, which is 02:00pm for everyone in South Africa. Join us live as we blog what will be the launch of yet another excellent Samsung device.
Samsung has said it will release the Galaxy S IV in New York 14 March, according to a Reuters report. The launch will take place in New York, at a “Samsung Unpacked” event as Sammy is now dubbing it.
Samsung Electronics' mobile division chief JK Shin says that the company has been inundated with requests from US mobile...

The specs for the Kinect 2.0, the next generation depth camera and motion sensor to be coupled with the new Xbox, have been leaked according to a lengthy report on VGLeaks, a trusted source of hardware tips on the internet. Running on a dedicated Durango system, the next-generation Kinect sensor will apparently have a much wider field of view, and quash the need for a tilt motor to catch movement if more than two players are present.
A greater field of view will mean the ability to have multiplayer games, maybe even up to six players instead of the previous...

The much debated but yet to be confirmed Samsung Galaxy S IV has seen plenty of rumours, from specs to release dates.
The latest development comes from Nenamark, a benchmark site for the Samsung model SCH-i545 device, with a 1920 x 1080 full-HD display. The Galaxy S III has a similar model number, SCH-i535 which gives the idea that this could have been a new Samsung model tested. Maybe the Galaxy S IV? Yes, it's a rather sketchy and unsupported rumour, but there could just be some weight to it.
According to some leaked documents, the new device will feature the Exynos 5440,...

Back in January 2013, Gearburn reported on the LG Optimus G Pro with specs that made us sit up straight and take notice. LG has now finally unveiled this potential Galaxy Note II killer, with all the rumoured specs front and present. The device goes on sale this week in Korea, with a release later in Q2 for North America, Japan and other markets, according to the LG Newsroom (translated).
At first glance it look much like its predecessor -- the Optimus G -- yet the bigger 5.5 inch HD IPS display, a collaboration between LG Electronics and LG Display,...

Dr. Emmet "Doc" Brown's DeLorean time travel machine is one of the most iconic cars of the silver screen. And also the only distinction the car ever achieved. The original, screen-used DeLorean from Back to the Future, known as the "A" car, has been expertly restored to complete museum quality standards over the last year and is now on display at Universal Studio. Back to the Future geeks... Sit up straight!
The Time Machine Restoration team, spearheaded by Back to the Future screenwriter Bob Gale, took a year to restore this car to its former glory after years of the...

The Nintendo Wii U has recorded less than stellar sales for its first quarter of 2013. Actually, dismal is a better word. According to Gamasutra, a source at the NPD Group reveals sales figures for the Wii U was well under 100 000 units, and more likely in the region of only 45 000 to 59 000 units for January.
There could be various reasons for this, but the lack of big game titles is one of the more prevailing factors. Apart from titles like Black Ops 2, Just Dance 4, New Super Mario Bros. U and maybe one or two...